Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus Closing

Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus will close it's doors after 146 years.

I remember going to the Ringling Brothers circus with my Dad when i was like 5 years old. And even though I haven’t been back to the circus since, it hurts a little bit to see it go. Like a piece of the nostalgia of walking down that huge hallway with my big military daddy is being taken away. I’ll never be able to take my kid to see “The Greatest Show On Earth”.

The announcement of their closing comes after the show experienced a huge loss in ticket sales. That along with legal battles with animal rights groups has given quite a blow to the Barnum & Bailey spectacle.

Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment which owns the circus said that when the elephants stopped making their appearance at the shows they saw an incredible drop in sales.

He stated: “It’s just not acceptable any more to cart around wild animals from city to city and have them perform silly yet coercive stunts. I know this is bittersweet for the Feld family, but I applaud their decision to move away from an institution grounded on inherently inhumane wild animal acts.”

Just this past week, the first ever female ringmaster made her circus debut in Orlando, Florida.

The full cast of the circus is between 250 and 300 people. With three performing units, the circus visits about 115 cities each year.

Ringling Bros was founded in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1884 by five of the seven Ringling brothers.

The family ran the circus until 1967 when it was sold to Feld Entertainment.